A New Friendship Hurdle

We've written before about how hard it can be to make new friends once you're out of college. Sometimes it's hard to open up to people at work, friends of friends aren't always your cup of tea, and it's challenging to stay in touch. In the last few months, I've been able to make a few good friends, but now I've uncovered a new hurdle -- at least for myself.

I've always considered myself an honest person and I'm don't usually have a problem with privacy. Because of that, I find myself easily telling people intimate details about myself and my relationships, so long as the privacy of the other people involved is protected. But one thing I've noticed is that there's usually a point in which that stops. I'm starting to find that instead of holding back in the beginning and then easily letting go later on, I'm an open book at first and then it's harder to pry me open.

Now that I'm spending more time hanging out with people and making new friends, this is starting to become much more noticeable. At the moment, there's one person I'm becoming good friends with, and I recently reached the point where I wasn't sure just how much I was willing to share. Despite the fact that we know each other fairly well by now and that I had no problem disclosing all sorts of information about myself before, I was suddenly stuck.

This has now happened with a couple of people, and I'm happy to say I've been able to push through it each time (though some more easily than others). I'm still not entirely sure how to not feel that way, but I'm adding it to the growing list of things I'm trying to explore with myself in the new year.

Is there anything you've learned about yourself recently that you're trying to work on?